Chinese authorities have detained top hospital officials in several provinces for allegedly selling fake birth certificates for use in human trafficking. The series of detentions shows some hospitals have possibly become hotbeds for such crimes.

China's state-run news agency Xinhua reports that local authorities have detained the head of a hospital and five others in Xiangyang in Hubei Province.

The report says they are suspected of illegally selling birth certificates in collusion with human trafficking brokers.

The documents are apparently used to register abducted children.

Media reports say local authorities in Foshan of Guangdong Province and Nanning of the Guangxi Zhuang Autonomous Region have also detained top officials of hospitals for investigation into suspected sales of fake certificates.

In China a spate of child abductions for trafficking have been reported as families mainly in rural area want to have boys as heirs or for use as workers.

Xinhua News Agency says that every birth certificate sold means that there may be a baby being sold and a family being broken.

The Chinese government says more than 3,000 people have been indicted over the past two years for their alleged involvement in abducting and trafficking children and women.